


Say It Slow

by poohsweatervest



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:53:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poohsweatervest/pseuds/poohsweatervest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NO SUMMARY YET</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say It Slow

                Cabin fever. It felt terrible. I was crawling in my own skin. I hadn't left my apartment - much less my desk - in two weeks. I did this to myself sometimes when new games would come. I would sit at my desk and stream them for days on end in hopes that I could make a little spare cash. I never expected it to get this out of hand.

                A month prior, I was in school with a job that I could count on to pay my student loans. I had since been fired from my job as a pizza delivery driver for falling asleep at the wheel of my car and wrecking on a call. It wouldn't have been much of a problem except that they found traces of THC in my drug test I was forced to take. I'll admit, that one was my fault. I'd gone to a party the night before and I did some things I wasn't proud of. I lost my license and my job and I had to pay a hefty fine that of course came out of the money I got from loans. If my dad weren't friends with the judge, I would most likely have gone straight to jail or been put on probation. As for school, I failed out and had no desire to go back. It cost me most of the rest of my money out on loans to cancel my classes.

                Which is where streaming came in. I needed to make some money and I knew that no place would hire me after what happened. A friend introduced me to a site called Twitch.tv and set me up with some of his old equipment to get started. He had around 2,000 viewers every time he streamed and promised me that he would advertise my stream whenever he could. I brought in about 300-400 viewers, rarely going above 500, which was the amount of steady viewers you needed to have for a partnership.

                Whenever you had a partnership, people could subscribe to you for $4.99 a month and receive updates when you go live along with a twice monthly newsletter from the streamer and special emotes to use in chat for the stream. The whole concept seemed fairly easy to me and I was determined to get a partnership.

                I'd barely stopped streaming since I started besides to eat and sleep. My cabinets and fridge were damn near barren and when I did sleep I hunched over at my desk. After about a week I felt disgusting and forced myself to take a shower. Another week went by and I took two more showers. I'd only been streaming for about an hour when I had to stop.

                It felt like the walls of my apartment were closing in on me and I had a bit of sudden claustrophobia. I shut down my stream after giving a departing message to my 346 viewers and looked at my PayPal account. My balance was just shy of $300, which was great until I noticed the late notice for my rent behind my keyboard. I was still in campus housing and after this late payment, they would realize that I hadn't moved out and evict me. I'd used the very last of my student loans on my cable bill the previous week and was out of money besides the donations I'd accumulated over the last month.

                I slammed my fists down on my desk and got up in one swift move, sending my Xbox controller flying through the air. I decided I was done thinking about it for now and left my apartment without even checking where it landed. I opted for the three flights of steps down instead of checking to see if there was room in the always crowded elevator. I was skipping as many steps as I could trust myself to without falling flat on my face and I hit the bottom in no time. I needed out as fast as possible and I needed as much fresh air as my lungs could hold.

                Sadly when I hit the street, I remembered I lived in the middle of a big city. Seeing the people walk quickly down the sidewalk and hearing the unmuffled traffic of the streets made me sick to my stomach. "This is no place for a dude that hasn't seen the light of day in two weeks," I said under my breath. I still trudged on down the sidewalk. I couldn't stand the thought of going back into my apartment.

                There was a park down the street that wasn't much but I could see the leafy trees from where I was. It contained a small pond with quite a few trees and bushes, but still tiny in comparison to the city's massive park that you'd run into if you were hopping on the highway out of town. I preferred the smaller because it was closer to where I lived and was much less crowded.

                When I got there, it seemed to be completely uninhabited and I sighed with relief. I didn't crave human contact, I just wanted a change of scene for a while and the park turned out to be the perfect place.

                Once I'd left the street lights and stepped onto the walking path, I realized it was dark out. I had no way of telling what time of the night it was because I'd left my disgustingly old flip phone on my desk. There weren't very many lights in the park, especially on the far side of the pond where I took a seat under a large oak tree.

                Letting out a long, tired breath, I laid back onto the grass that was slightly wet with dew and closed my eyes. I didn't want to fall asleep but the sounds of the cicadas and crickets with a background of the city soon had me drifting off. The buzzing of the traffic was so much more satisfying when heard from a distance rather than muffled by drywall. It was so much different than the annoying hum of my computer and Xbox under florescent lights in the campus level housing. The city I used to live in was so much different than this one, but then again, maybe it wasn't all that different. Maybe I just went outside and had more than two friends when I lived at home.

                It felt like not even ten minutes had passed when I heard someone walk on the grass somewhere near me. A strange but familiar clicking sound followed. I opened my eyes and looked around me, slowly sitting up, but found nothing but noticing the sky had changed colors slightly. The click sound happened again and I still couldn't place why I recognized it, but I determined it was coming from behind me. turning around I heard one final click before I heard an almost chirping chuckle. That's when I saw him. I lanky guy with a big nose and light hair taking pictures of me in the dark.

                My movement must have come as a surprise because he barely had the reaction speed to move before I charged and tackled him. I was on top of him in an instant with my hands on his wrists, pinning him to the ground. He was yelling in a high pitched voice and I couldn't make out a single word he said. Instead of trying to understand him, I started yelling back.

                "Why the fuck are you taking pictures of me?" I snarled at him through clenched teeth. "Huh!?"

                "I'm sorry!" He screamed. His voice had an odd sound to it and it took me hearing another sentence before I realized he had a very British accent. "I'm Sorry! I was taking pictures of a project! Please get off of me!"

                My temper started to cool when I realized I was attacking some poor out of country college kid. I loosened my grip and he immediately grabbed for the expensive looking camera that had fallen at his side. He had a terrified look on his face, but after inspecting it, he smiled and sighed. That is, until he looked up at me with a furrowed brow and a toothy smile. I was still on top of him and straddling his waist.

                "Are you going to let me up?" He asked with a confused laugh.

                "Yeah," I answered as I rolled off of him. He sat up and we were both cross-legged in the grass. "Sorry about that." I looked over at him and he was rubbing the back of his head.

                "Why are you apologizing?" He chuckled. "I was the one taking pictures of you in the dark after all."

                It wasn't until then that I returned the smile. "Okay, that was pretty fucked up." His face showed some concern at my choice of words. "What possessed you to come out in the middle of the night to take pictures of dudes accidentally falling asleep in parks?"

                "Ha!" He let out a sharp laugh. "Five a.m. is hardly the middle of the night! I have class in an hour!"

                Looking at the sky, I realized that it was getting lighter and there were hints of pinks and oranges in the morning clouds. "Shit. I guess you're right."

                "I know I'm right," He laughed and pointed his camera at the sky, snapping a picture then falling backwards gently to lay on the grass. "I have some photos due in my second class. The project is all about lighting. I thought 'What better way is there to finish a project about lighting than to take pictures in the dark?'"

                "Aren't the pictures gonna turn out black?"

                "I have my exposure up a bit. The sun rising and the street lights are giving off enough light that pictures turn out really cool looking. There mostly all tinted the same color and silhouettes look like they're glowing!"

                "That's all pretty cool," I answered. Even though the most I knew about cameras developed when I was on vacations with my parents and they gave me one of those cheap disposable cameras to take pictures, the way he talked about them kept my attention. He seemed so passionate about everything he was saying. "Can I see them?"

                "Sure!" He said enthusiastically. He held the camera above his head and made no indication that he was sitting up any time soon and I was forced to lay on the grass beside him. I scooted in close so I could see the tiny screen of his bulky camera as he went through other pictures. He stopped on one that looked like restaurant seating on a sidewalk under an awning. "I took this one because it reminded me of  'Cafe Terrace At Night' by Vincent Van Gogh. I thought my professor might appreciate it."

                "He's the guy that cut off his ear, right?" I asked him. He gave me a look that I couldn't quite translate, then smiled and turned back to his camera.

                "That's the one." He flipped through the pictures, coming to a stop on one overlooking the city. There was a fake tree on the left side of the picture and the sky was the glowing hue that it always was when you looked up at night. "You probably won't like this one since you don't know Van Gogh very well, but this is supposed to mimic his painting 'Starry Night.' Or at least it would if I could capture the stars in this damn city."

                "where did you take this one?" I asked him. "I've never seen this angle on the place."

                "Off of the roof to my aunt's apartment building. We live on the south side of downtown  in this awful apartment complex. I set my tripod up so it was really close to the railing and there was this old miniature fake pine tree just sitting up there so I used it in the shot. It was around two this morning so it was really dark out and I took it of the suburbs."

                "So you do go take pictures in the middle of the night?" I nudged him playfully in the side and he squawked like a bird pretending that it hurt and immediately laughed.

                "That's not important!" He changed to the picture of me he took while I was sleeping. The entire picture was different shades of deep blue and you could barely see me lying there. My body was slightly illuminated by the glow of the street lights in the distance and the only feature you could see at a glance was my shirt which was supposed to be white, but the picture made it look like it was a light indigo. The colors gave it a mood with the deep blues and it gave off the vibe that it was peaceful. "This is what's important."

                "I really like this one."

                "I do too," he commented and smirked before switching to the next one of me sitting up and looking around. The one immediately after that I looked confused and was rubbing a hand through my hair. "I like these ones too, but they're much more candid," he giggled.

                "I wish you would have gotten one of me right before I tackled you." We both laughed at that and fell into a slightly uncomfortable silence.

                The sky was growing lighter by the second and I could see the features of the man next to me more clearly. He was fairly tan and had dirty blonde hair and green eyes. His nose was still huge but somehow seemed to work with his features. His teeth were blindingly white to the point that it made me feel self-conscious about my own smile. He had some newly growing stubble and a few hairs from his chest poking out of the top of his shirt.

                I didn't realize that he knew I was examining him until he sat up and looked at his watch. "Sausages," he mumbled. "I've got to get going if I want to make it to class on time."

                "Oh yeah, I forgot about the class you mentioned." I sat up as he stood up and he offered me a hand. I grabbed it and he pulled me to my feet and we both took a second to brush our backsides off.

                He grabbed both my arms afterwards and put his camera into one of my hands. On the other, he started writing with a pen he'd fished out of one of his pockets. "I don't have my phone on me currently, so I'll just give you my number. Shoot me a text and I'll take you out for lunch some time." He looked up at me for a second and met my eyes and caught me blushing. He smirked and continued writing. "Gavin, by the way."

                "I'm Michael," I said trying to keep my voice steady. I'd never had anyone reduce me to such a mess before.

                "I don't normally do this, but you're cute and interesting."

                "I could say the same about you."

                "Then we're on the same page." He capped the pen and took his camera from me and started walking on the path out of the park. "I'll talk to you later hopefully!" he shouted back as he waved a hand in the air.

                I waved one backed and hoped that I would be able to see Gavin again.


End file.
